Tag Archives: memoir

Desert ephiphany

December 13, 2013 emmapalova Leave a comment

Going back to a distant childhood memory

As I approach my one year anniversary with Word Press on Jan. 15^th I have to share this inspirational message or a writing prompt that goes so well with my memoir “Greenwich Meridian.”

My Rumanian friend and colleague on Word Press poet Valeriu Dg Barbu liked this timeline photo on my facebook in the same fashion I liked his childhood photo and poem Thief. Now, I understand why.

I was in this high plateau desert with Saguaro forest near Tucson AZ in 1972 with my parents and then in 2011 with my daughter Emma only to find out that nothing has changed.

“Do you remember this?”Emma asked.

Emma Palova 2011 in Saguaro National Park

And there were the same cacti as when I was in my beloved Saguaro desert as a child since they live up to 100 to 200 years. There was even the same old visitor’s building even though it was closed and a new center had opened nearby.

It was a very humbling experience and I had to ask myself a question.

“Have I changed?”

Sure, physically I have. I am older and I don’t have the romantic long hair so admired by both men and women.

I still get the same old question whenever I come back to Czech Republic for a visit.

“Why did you cut your hair?” neighbor Milena and a friend both asked me at first sight.

But, I am still the same ambitious and hard- driving creature never afraid to tackle new things, look to the sky and reach for the stars. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in the USA. I would probably still be whining back in Czech, swearing at the regime and complaining about my vice-president job for an engineering firm located at Zarami, Zlin.

I am very happy here in the US as a successful author, journalist & photographer. I am thankful to my entrepreneurial surroundings and friends including Word Press, facebook & Google+

Saguaro forest immortalized by Vaclav Konecny

Also inspired by the Sonoran desert, my dad former Ferris State University professor Vaclav Konecny immortalized the majestic saguaro in his oil on black velvet painting “Saguaro cacti at night” in the 70s. He did it again as a present for me in the 1990s with the same impeccable quality of a mathematician.

So styles and personalities basically don’t change.

I think everyone should ask themselves that same question: Have I changed since a certain humbling moment in my life?

Watch for my Silver Sunday post coming soon.

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Book dedication to my mother

May 11, 2013 emmapalova 1 Comment

Author dedicates book to mother

Mom Ella at Selby Garden in Sarasota, Florida.

I embarked on this journey through my memories called “Greenwich Meridian where East meets West” on December 12, 2012 after being asked by many colleagues, friends and acquaintances to write our story.
I have attempted several times to pen our immigration saga now spanning three generations. I saved evidence of such attempts like the personal essay, “Fire on Water.” I used the same title for my novel based on the communist experience from former Czechoslovakia. Some trace elements of the story can be found in a newspaper article about my naturalization as a U.S. citizen in 1999, “Lowell woman gets naturalized.” It was syndicated by the Associated Press and well received by the audience. I got phone calls from all over Michigan.
Finally, I decided to pursue my lifelong dream of writing for the pleasure of others. Until recently I have been writing mostly for information capturing tragedies, disasters, events, politics and corrupt police chiefs or superintendents. However, my forte are human interest stories often about ordinary people doing unusual things either by their own will or against it. The memoir is a true work of creative non-fiction in which I combine real life exotic settings like Africa with real life people, who are either put in a bizarre situation or get into one by their own doings.
Today, on this Mothers Day, I dedicate the book to my mother Ella Konecny who suffered the most in immigration because as Mr. Jan Skvor said at a Czechoslovak Conference for Arts and Science in Emigration in Horgen, Switzerland, 1970.
“Immigration is not for missies.”
For me immigration has been one of the toughest things I’ve ever done in my entire life. And that includes studying calculus, seeing my grandparents through their illness to the end and living by myself with two young children, so I could leave the country to join my husband. And now by writing about it, I am reliving it. But, I want to preserve some of the events, and to a certain point even history.
I have no regrets. America has helped me realize my dream of writing. I would do it all over again. I have a Daruma doll used by Japanese businessmen for motivation and to stay on task. One of my former editors gave it to me when I was facing a tough project. When things are not going your way, you just knock it down. A little steel ball at the bottom makes it bounce back. You also color only one eye, and once the project is complete you color the other eye. So, Daruma has been watching me pounding away on my keyboard at early morning hours chapter after chapter.

“Life went by so fast,” said mom when we talked about immigration in Venice, Florida and at the Selby Gardens.

I completed a 50-page book proposal for Greenwich Meridian to an agent yesterday May 9th , on my birthday. This article contains some excerpts from the overview of the project.
Copyright © 2013 story and photo by Emma Palova